March Madness officially begins today! & The NFL season will start on a Wednesday??

They've traveled about an hour away from Oxford, all for this.

Paper one.

It's on my every moment.

The Red Hawks win their first NCAA tournament game since 1999, and they advance.

Easily the best crowd I've ever seen in a first-four game.

That place was rocking.

It was a Miami crowd.

They beat SMU 89-79.

And there I say it.

They looked the part.

Like they looked like that dangerous mid-major that could pull a first round upset.

Or maybe even a few more.

We'll get to what's next for Miami coming up.

We are in the same mode they were in last night.

Max, we're in sprint mode today because they were flying around.

The ball was moving.

41-3 point attempts.

We are here for one hour, and then we turn it over to NCAA men's basketball tournament coverage,

starting with the pre-game show at 11 here leading you up to the first tip of the day,

which is TCU and Ohio State from Greenville, South Carolina.

The Buckeyes have a point guard in Bruce Thornton who's been there forever.

TCU coached by Jamie Dixon.

He's had a really good season in that very difficult big-12.

That's a good first game.

I've got four smell test picks for today's first round.

I will get to those probably at the end of this hour.

On this particular one-hour show, you're going to hear from Mike Genetti, a spot track.

He joined me on my podcast, and he was excellent talking about Washington's free agency so far,

talking about free agency in general, but specifically talking about the Brandon Iyuk situation

and how he sees it playing out.

Don't think that it's going to happen quickly, but he thinks it will eventually happen.

But stay tuned.

He will jump on with us in about 15 minutes.

We'll talk with Michael Genetti, the co-founder and editor of SpotTrack, which really is one of the,

I think it's the best site for tracking player salaries, contracts, salary cap stuff.

But March Madness is here in Miami.

One last night, 89 to 79.

You know, there was a missing player from the lineup for SMU.

That the committee, Keith Gill, the chairman of the committee said that the reason that SMU was in the field,

or he, a big consideration for putting SMU into the field, was that BJ Edwards

was supposedly ready.

He was their number three score and number two assist man on the SMU team.

He had missed SMU's final five games with an injury, and they lost four of those five games.

And Keith Gill said during that selection Sunday, you know, post interview,

he said Edwards's return helped SMU's case to be included in the field as an at large selection.

Well, he didn't play last night.

And people are accusing Andy Enfield, the head coach of SMU, remember Andy Enfield,

the head coach of Florida Golf Coast, Andy Enfield, the head coach at USC,

Andy Enfield, pretty good shooter back in the day.

When he was working, I think at Merrill Lynch, at Bethesda Sport and Health,

yeah, he could really shoot it.

I think I've told this story before, but I was at the 2013 Final Four.

It was the Final Four in which Florida Golf Coast in the lead up to the Final Four

had upset Georgetown had advanced to the sweet 16, if you recall.

And we were on radio row and somebody said, do you want the Florida Golf Coast coach?

And I said, sure.

And so he came over and he sat down and I don't know why it hadn't registered.

But he looked at me and he said, I know you.

And I said, yeah, what are you doing here?

For the Florida Golf Coast coach to come sit down and have a conversation with me goes, I am.

I said, well, when did that happen?

He was a stockbroker.

He had played at Johns Hopkins and was a phenomenal shooter, really good shooter,

but used to come and play it, but Bethesda Sport and Health all the time in the 90s,

early 2000s, mid 2000s.

But yeah, Andy Enfield's been around for a while.

That was his seventh trip, but he's being accused of

of hiding and misleading the committee on the BJ Edwards injury

because the word got out to the committee after they asked that Edwards would be ready to play in the game last night.

If they knew Edwards wasn't going to play in the game last night,

very likely Oklahoma would have been included in the field, not SMU.

Now, he said after the game, when questioned about it, he said,

we thought he would be ready.

The player said he would be ready, but when we got ready for the game, he said,

I just don't feel like I'm ready to go, but I'll be ready Friday if we win.

Well, he didn't play Miami one.

I don't know if he would have made the difference.

I haven't watched SMU this year, so I don't know how much BJ Edwards would have mattered.

I'll tell you this though, Miami last night.

I've watched them a couple of times down the stretch when they were kind of in trouble

and a couple of their mid-American game conference games came back in one

and kept their unbeaten season alive, finished the regular season 31 and 0

before losing to UMass in the mid-American quarterfinals.

I didn't necessarily see what I saw last night,

which is unbelievable spacing, unbelievable ball movement.

A real purpose to their drives.

They're so well coached offensively with the spacing in particular

and what they do with ball movement and how many times the ball moves.

This isn't ISO. This isn't two-man shooting threes.

This is drive, throwout, two more passes to a wide open shooter.

I'll tell you, SMU was more athletic and they did close out

and they did get in the face of some of the shooters even with the incredible passing

even with a collapse defense, but they were knocking them down.

Man, 16 of 41, 39 percent ultimately from behind the arc.

They shot a couple too quickly late in the game with a big lead

and it kind of got dicey there for a second, but Miami looked the part.

They totally looked the part last night, super impressed

with what Miami was able to do last night.

And that's the kind of mid major team that gives majors trouble.

The team that puts five dudes on the floor that can all shoot it

and can all handle it and all know how to play the game.

Tennessee is their next opponent.

What is the line?

I didn't look at the line for that game.

I'm going to assume that Tennessee is every bit of a 9-10 point favorite

because they play defense.

Rick Barnes is team plays defense and they got A-Ment, they've got Collette.

They're an 11 point favorite.

Hey, mark this one down right now, Max.

Tomorrow, I'm almost positive Tennessee will be a smelts aspect

because after last night, the world is going to be on Miami of Ohio.

No doubt the entire betting public will be taking the big number

and betting the Red Hawks.

But they were fun to watch last night in the final game of the first four.

And today we get a tournament.

We get a tournament with 16 games.

These next four days, I put these next four days right next to Thanksgiving weekend.

And then I think Labor Day weekend in terms of the best sports weekends

on the calendar.

Labor Day weekend because football is back.

Now, we don't get the NFL.

So maybe Labor Day weekend takes a back seat.

Maybe it's that second weekend in September when the NFL opens up

with college football in week two.

If you're a tennis fan, you get the US open ending.

But Labor Day just to have that full Saturday of football is pretty good.

But I would say thanks giving week slash weekend.

And this weekend are the two best weekends on the sports calendar.

Divisional round playoff weekend, wild card weekend.

They're in the in the mix too.

But these next four days, 16 games, 16 games, eight games, eight games to narrow the field from 64 down to 16.

It is as good as it gets.

Max and I both have the game that we are most interested in watching.

We'll tell you what that is.

I also have my annual NCAA formula, which is how I narrow the field from 68 down to a certain number of teams.

It's worked pretty much with the exception of, I think, the year Virginia wanted.

I don't think I had Virginia in my final group of schools of teams that could win the national championship.

But I've gotten it down to eight, which is a big number actually.

Last year I had it down to five.

Florida was one of those teams.

They did go on to win the national championship.

But I'll run through that on the show today.

But let me get to a quick, what do you got?

So two things.

Number one, did you see that it is now kind of confirmed?

There have been multiple reports anyway.

That the Seattle Seahawks will open up the season as the defending champions on Wednesday night September 9th.

So a night earlier than usual.

And the reason for that is the Rams in 49ers are going to play on Thursday night September 10th.

Again, against each other in Melbourne, Australia, the first ever game in Australia.

So Wednesday night, mark your calendars.

That will be the NFL kickoff game Seattle playing somebody to kick off the 2026 season.

However, there is a wrinkle to this.

That night Wednesday night September 9th, the Mariners play at home right next to Lumenfield in their stadium.

And the soccer team in Seattle, the Seattle Sounders, which I am told is a big deal in Seattle.

Soccer, apparently, is a big deal in Seattle and in Portland.

Did you know that, Max?

The NLS teams out there are a big deal in the Pacific Northwest.

Yeah, just a little bit here and there.

I remember seeing a lot of what Portland Sounders and I can't remember Seattle.

I don't know what the Portland team is.

It's the Seattle Sounders.

Oh, wait, then who am I thinking of?

I don't know.

The Portland Timbers.

I don't know what their team is.

I just made that up.

No.

Is that what they're called?

Honestly.

Think so.

No, they're not.

Now you're, now you're trolling me.

I just completely made that up.

The Timbers?

Maybe I, maybe I remember it from what you said.

You did their NLS team, brother?

That's the MLS team?

Yeah.

Well, then I must have heard it at some point.

But if you had said for, you know, $5,000,

name the team and I would have given it thought,

I probably would have said something different than Timbers.

But it must have been laying there somewhere in my brain.

Anyway, the Sounders have a game scheduled at Lumen Field

on Wednesday night, September 9th.

Now the expectation is that the Sounders will reschedule their game

and the Mariners will, you know, reschedule their game

to earlier in the day.

Let me just mention that back in 2013,

the Ravens were the defending Super Bowl champions.

They had beaten the 49ers in the Super Bowl for the 2012 season.

And they did not open up the NFL season on Thursday night at home.

They had to play that game on the road at Denver against Peyton Manning

and they got beaten.

Because the Orioles refused to reschedule their scheduled game

which started at seven o'clock, it was going to be too much of a traffic issue.

I mean, the Ravens and Orioles, I guess, are at odds or they were at that time.

And Baltimore and Baltimore was the only team since we started playing

the defending champion to open up the season at home on Thursday night football

to play that game on the road.

Now if the Sounders and the Mariners decide to play hardball,

there is a possibility, however distant,

that Seattle would have to play that game on the road.

And guess who was included on their road schedule this year?

Washington.

How about Washington hosting the kickoff classic Wednesday night September 9th

against the Seahawks?

By the way, I don't want any part of that.

Actually, I do. Why not?

Why not? Catch him early when they're, you know.

I think the Rams are going to be the best team.

I thought the Rams were the best team last year.

The other quick, what do you got?

Is the NFL, according to Adam Schaefter,

is laying the groundwork right now for doing something that they haven't done in a long time.

And that is use replacement referees

in the regular season.

They are right now the NFL referees association in the league

do not have an agreement in place for the 2026 season.

And so the league apparently is making plans

to go replacement refs.

Remember 2012, RG3 season.

We started that season with replacement reps.

And it extended 110 days

into the third week of the regular season.

And if I recall, it was disastrous.

Do you remember the fail marry between the Seahawks and Packers on Monday Night Football?

Oh, yeah.

The one that was caught for the win.

Wasn't that an Aaron Rodgers pass?

It was caught pretty sure.

But it was ruled out.

Was that it?

Or was that Russell Wilson completing a pass that shouldn't have been a touchdown

that was called a touchdown?

I forget now.

I remember it was Seahawks Packers.

Am I right about that?

Yes, that was the game.

What happened?

I can't remember the specifics.

If I recall, it was an Aaron Rodgers throw into the end zone

and Seattle won the game.

Let me look up the final.

I believe it was like 14 to 12 was the final score

of that one.

Here it is.

The final game with replacement reps,

reps, I keep saying reps, reps.

The final game with replacement referees

was the fail marry game,

Seattle 14 to 12 over Green Bay.

I don't know details here.

I mean, we could go back and look it up.

Sounds like a project here for us to get on.

Let's get to a break.

I want you to hear my conversation

with Michael Genetti from SpotTrack.

He's so good.

He's so knowledgeable.

He knows what these free agent deals should have been,

should look like,

has a lot of thoughts on where the league is right now

with free agency and really spelled out the brand

in IUK situation very well.

We'll get to that next.

Kevin Sheen showed the team 980 and the team 980.com.